Birthday Gal!

Last Thursday was Ele's 30th!

I took the day off work as a suprise for her and I got her a nice watch (a benefit of a January birthday is there are good bargains in the sales!).

In the evening, her parents, Saff & Anise and Caroline came over for an Indian takeaway feast, and then my parents came over later as well.

Chris made her a HUGE triple-layer chocolate cake which was very nice indeed.

Her main present from most people was money, and we are going to go away just the two of us for a weekend somewhere nice.

This Sunday we are all (incl. both sets of parents and my brother and sister as well) off to a place called Coombe Lodge for a nice lunch as her "official" birthday dinner.

Then we'll have to decide where to go for our weekend away. Can't wait for that.

We bought a new camera as well - a Canon EOS 400d. It's very nice indeed and gets far better shots than our old one. It's much more responsive as well when using it. They are quite popular at the moment, so I had to call lots of stores to try and find one. When I did I wanted to do it on the buy-now-pay-next-year deal, so I carefully found some bank statements and utility bills, got Joe in the car and drove to Epsom (Ele was off taking Saff & Anise for a photoshoot for Anise). Joe fell asleep in the car, so I carefully got him out and put him in the pushchair, got as far as the lifts and realised I had left the stuff behind. So I had to put him back in the car, drive home, get the bank statements etc from where I'd left them, and drive back to Epsom again. Very annoying...

That was the Christmas that was

Ok, so I didn't blog again before Christmas. Or New Year. But never mind. A lot happened over the period, so here are the highlights, chronologically ordered for convenience.

22nd - Finished work early, after a trip to the pub at lunchtime. Result!

23rd - All (including Chris, Arthur, Saff & Anise) went to visit Victoria, Simon, Olivia & Hugo in their lovely country house in the backwaters of Kent. Lovely lunch was eaten, presents were exchanged, babies were knocked over by labradoodles and all in all a great time was had by everyone.

24th - Frantic cleaning and tidying of the house in preperation for the Big Day. Jessi showed Joe his present under the tree that we got from Victoria the day before, and all day he kept going to it and picking it up and carrying it around. He didn't touch any of the others there - he knew that one was his. He didn't even try to open it! He's a funny boy. Hard to believe he's 14 months now. Then we had our traditional Xmas Eve Domino's pizza for dinner. Yum. We watched about half of a half of The Hogfather then put Jess to bed whilst we wrapped the last few remaining presents, and bought all the rest downstairs. Jess couldn't sleep though and was awake until gone midnight!

25th - Got woken up quite early by Joe and Jess. Spent the morning opening presents. The highlights of this included a very nice new moleskin coat for me, a new handbag for Ele and far to much to mention for Jess and Joe. After we'd finished I bought out a suprise present that I'd got for everyone - a Nintendo Wii! There was a massive shortage of these and I was very lucky to have found one. I'd not even told Ele about it, and both she and Jess were delighted. Then it was time to put the vegetables in to roast. Chris was doing the Turkey and potatoes and bringing them over, so we were just on veggie duty. Everyone arrived shortly after and there were even more presents and then a delicious and huge Xmas dinner. There was far to much food, but then there always is. We deferred pudding to the evening as we were so full. We all played a couple of games of Scene-It (a DVD-based board game about Films that Ele and I bought each other for Xmas), and Ele and I won both of them. Then we went over to Chris & Arthur's for pudding and Irish coffee. We had a game of Music Scene-It (Ele & Saff's present to Arthur - same principle, just on Music instead of Films), and despite lagging behind we had a late run and won that as well. Then it was home to bed.

26th - Off to my parents today. We went late morning and did even more pressies, and then Chris, Arthur, Saff & Anise came over later for lunch, and also Caroline & Ian. So there were even more presents floating around. I got a nice DAB Digital Radio for the kitchen which is really cool.

27th - Finally setup the Wii, which has barely been off since. It really is the greatest thing in the world and I'm very pleased I managed to get hold of one. I nearly didn't. The story is that I was sitting at work one day in December wondering if I should goto Tesco in New Malden at lunchtime to see if they had any. I decided it wasn't worth the bother as they almost certainly wouldn't. Then at 2pm I saw a post on the MoneySavingExpert site made half an hour earlier from somebody saying that they had just bought one from Tesco in New Malden. I wrote a quick reply and then dashed out. There were none on the shelves so I queued and asked at the Customer Services desk and they had 2 left! When they bought mine out I sent her back to the warehouse to get me another controller and a guy came over wondering if they had any more. It turns out he had seen the same posting on MoneySavingExpert and then said "Oh, are you the guy who wrote he was dashing there now?". Small world. He got one too, so he was happy.

31st - We had our traditional small New Years gathering. Just both our familes came over, plus Chris & Arthur's next-door neighbour's boy, who played on the Wii all night with Jess. The fireworks on the TV from London were amazing - the best display any of us had ever seen.

1st - Very tired! Went over to Chris & Arthur's for a nice roast lunch. I fell asleep on an armchair whilst Ele was painting with the babies (well, with brushes, but you know what I mean). Then it was an early night!

And now we're back at work, the tin of Celebrations is finished and my new trousers are dirty. Christmas is definately over!

-Neil